Installing Android on your Netbook, part 1.5: Frequently Asked Questions

I’m still working on the next part of our guide to installing Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) on a netbook, but for now here are the answers to a few commonly asked questions that I’ve encountered so far. If you’d like to read the original article which outlines the install process and why you’d want to even install Android on your laptop in the first place, then read it here.

How do I uninstall Android x86?

How do I shut down?

  • Press the power button twice, then select ‘yes’ on the box that appears.

Some apps are missing from the marketplace?

  • Yes, some are missing. There isn’t much you can do about this, except wait for either Android x86 to be updated or the apps to be marked as working on x86 systems.

My {wireless, keyboard, mouse, display } doesn’t work!

  • Try a different version of the Android x86 ISO, but it may be that your hardware isn’t compatible with Android x86.

I can’t boot into the installer, something goes wrong!

  • The most likely point of failure is the USB drive – try a different one.

Will this work on my { some laptop or netbook } ?

  • I don’t know – the best way is to try it for yourself, using the ‘Live CD’ boot option.

Android x86 running on a reader's netbook.

If you’ve got any other questions, feel free to ask them here in the comments below!

14 thoughts on “Installing Android on your Netbook, part 1.5: Frequently Asked Questions

  1. Hi Hector,

    It looks like your USB drive might be formatted as NTFS? I’ve had more success with FAT32, so try reformatting your USB drive to FAT32, then running the UNetbootin installation again.

    Cheers,

    Will

  2. I created the image on HD at the Windows computer, when chosing UNetbootin at booting it, I got to the menu and then chosing Run Android x86, I always get to the screen in line mode in the enclosed image, it seems the script is not properly executing, What Can I do?

    Thanks

    Hector Aguirre

  3. I’m sorry, I haven’t run into that error before. You might try a newer version or reinstalling with a new file structure, but I’m not sure that will help. Sorry!

  4. I installed Android on my Acer laptop and while the USB dongle was in it worked fine. As soon as I removed the thumb drive and tried to boot it would not boot and said it was an unrecognized file system. Any assistance here from you would be greatly appreciated.

  5. The screen is turned sideways on some apps but not others. I am using an Asus netbook with android-x86-4.0-RC1-eeepc.iso or android-x86-4.0-RC2-eeepc.iso. I turned off auto rotation and it still does it. I am just running it off my flash drive to test things before I install it on a SD card or on the hard drive. Would it work correctly if it’s installed instead of running it from the flash drive? Any ideas? Thanks!

  6. You can if you like, but you can also do this in the Android x86 installer. Basically, you just want to leave some empty, unpartitioned space on the drive and point the installer to that.

  7. Hi Sam! No, I’m afraid I haven’t looked into that. A good place to ask might be the Android x86 project itself:
    http://www.android-x86.org/contact

    From what I understand they are still working on getting the core functionality down, so if touch-screen support isn’t included in one of the many builds that have been produced it is unlikely to be added quickly. But try all of the different releases and see – I bet at least one of them is made for a touch-screen tablet or notebook.

  8. Cheers for the really helpful guide! I am looking to install this on my acer aspire one netbook. However I also want to retrofit it with a touchscreen like many people have done. I have seen the touchscreen work with an standard laptop OS (eg XP/Linux) but am not sure whether it would be compatible with android. Have you looked into doing anything like this?

    thanks!

  9. OK I’ve done live boot, its fine. Now I want to install. I am concerned about my GRUB will it overwrite it? I want to keep GRUB and have triple boot (win+linux+android)

  10. the screen is rotated (it looks like a phone in that aspect instead of a tablet) how do i fix that?

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